queerbychoice | Where Michael Moore Went Wrong

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Where Michael Moore Went Wrong

Robert Jensen's critique of Fahrenheit 9/11 for being conservative and racist is enough all by itself to justify reading

counterpunchrss regularly. Go read it.

In other news, my little baby brother turned 24 years old today and I must now go see him and give him presents.

Oh, and July 3rd was the third anniversary of my LiveJournal's birth. See, that was back when I was still 24 myself and genderfree and not yet out to my parents and had only kissed two people in my life instead of four. But I'm still just as strange! At least, I hope I'm still just as strange. One's strangeness would be a terrible thing to accidentally misplace. *checks* Yes, I think it's all here intact. Excellent.

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hm. i don't know, i agree with some of the points, however, letting small amounts of society's fudanmental misconceptions and nationalism show through in a movie that's trying its best to relate to the general public, i don't see how that's such a big idea. i mean, i hate to say it, but if you want the most left, most accurate, most shocking stuff, without anything conservative or mainstream, then the public won't go see it, and if they did, they wouldn't necessarily relate to it as much.

and actually, morocco does (i believe i read it on the bbc) use "specially trained" monkeys to "clear" land-mine fields. which means "go monkeys go! jump on the land mines!"

oh right. and know what i love?

hundreds of conservative "analysts" on television.
they say the movie is propaganda, and wrong, and innacurate.

they say the movie is guilty of making judgement based on innacurate information, and of trying to convince the american people of a lie just to promote a political agenda.

funny, the irony in that.

Mostly I agree with the above article, except that I think Moore leaves the Afghanistan war and his opinions intentionally not clear so that the main thesis is not disturbed too much. Something that instantly criticised empire and the entire American idea of itself in the world forum would undoubtedly drive people away from the movie in droves.

Even a single spark can start a prairie fire.

this is robert jensen of ¨you are what you eat¨ robert jensen???? :)

Since Jensen completely misunderstands the rhetoric of the movie, it's not surprising his critique completely misses the mark.

Michael Moore doesn't make movies that conform to a college sophomore essay structure (possibly because he never finished college, so he never learned how to write a college sophomore essay). That's a huge problem for Moore in Bowling for Columbine, which really needed an English prof to say "hey, Mike, your evidence doesn't support your conclusion -- go after the more interesting conclusion it does support!" It's a huge problem for reviewers like Jensen in movies like Fahrenheit 9/11, which is a rhetorical exercise, and not really an argumentative one.

Here's the rub: if you can't find a thesis statement, maybe it's because the movie doesn't have a thesis. It's not surprising that the choice of evidence Jensen finds in the movie to support Jensen's imagined thesis is racist. If, in fact, the movie were an attempt to make Jensen's imagined argument, then his critique would be on the mark. But since Jensen has misread the movie, his essay is essentially a demonstration that his misreading is racist and conservative. To which which we can all happily say, so what?

That's something I've been noticing: a lot of reviewers and critics seem to view the suggestion in the movie that our response in Afghanistan was slow and small (I believe that was the phrase) as a claim that we should've been more brutal. Not at all-- it's inteded to indicate that the administration's response to 9/11, with regards to terrorism, has been half-hearted. It paints a pattern of lip-service being paid to actually stopping terrorism, with the money and effort going to Iraq (now a terrorist threat, when it didn't used to be) and repression.

The article... is a mixed bag, I think. For instance, I can't bring myself to be offended that Moore used footage of monkeys when talking about Morroco's offer of land-mine clearing.... monkeys.

A Google search indicates that the Robert Jensens who wrote both articles are both journalism professors at the University of Texas at Austin and the author of a book called Citizens of the Empire: The Struggle to Claim Our Humanity - so yes, it's the same person.

I don't see how the fact that Moore has no thesis renders it unracist to use stereotypical images to "represent" various countries, so I think some of the criticism stands.

The review doesn't claim that Morocco doesn't do such a thing. The review just takes issue with summarizing the existences of Morocco and many other countries with a few stereotyped images, including but not limited to that one. The fact that Morocco's military uses monkeys doesn't really inherently mean anything about their military's weakness, so it's an odd thing to mention. I mean, the U.S. could start using monkeys tomorrow and it certainly wouldn't instantly render our military weak. So Moore could provide far more actually relevant information if he said something like "Morrocco's military contains only 20 soldiers"; but instead he chooses to just point out that it contains monkeys and he fails to tell us how few soldiers it contains, apparently expecting us to just bizarrely and incorrectly conclude that adding monkeys to any military automatically renders it weak.

maybe the "monkey unit" is the only unit morocco sent to the "war"?
my point is, the last thing we need is to polarize the left. progressive ideas have already been labeled treasonous and unpatriotic, if not terorrist. i don't like to see the left squabble about how mainstream certain views are and how compromising others are. if we're ever going to topple the conservative machine that is ripping apart everything this country is supposed to stand for, we have to stop sectionalizing our views, whereby we are all rendered powerless

Good luck posting anything critical of Michael Moore. I'm going to hold off reading that article until I see the movie.

Yeah, I can't really be offended by that as well. I'm offended by Morroco's sending them, as the monkeys can't probably consent, but you know, I'm a pussy vegan. I tell you, they should send babies.

I couldn't possibly disagree more strongly. Telling people to only voice leftist views if they're the specific leftist views that are the current leftist party line already is what renders them powerless. Critique of the left by the left is what enables problems within the left to be fixed or improved, and without it, the left party line would be nothing but a sort of variant blind patriotism - unthinking adherence to the left party line isn't any less unthinking than unthinking adherence to anybody else's party line.

I remember seeing those images when I saw the movie with you...and I also remember Conan O'Brian using the same images many months earlier, in a "making fun of the coalition" bit. I realize that the fact he used them is more important than whether they originated with him, but a negative critique of anything is going to be biased in some way. Really, ANYthing will be biased in some way. There are always many factors to be considered that aren't readily apparent.

letting small amounts of society's fudanmental misconceptions and nationalism show through in a movie that's trying its best to relate to the general public, i don't see how that's such a big idea.

Don't you mean white society? What may be a "misconception" to you can be a piece of painful racist propaganda to someone else. People of color have often been referred to as "monkeys" by racists. Michael Moore should know better.

It's not a matter of "most left" or "most shocking", but of accuracy. Many churches have been at the forefront of fighting racism. Most are fairly conservative compared to an average leftist.

In the late 70s, Roots (http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0075572/combined) literally captured the attention of the US. Most households with TVs were tuned in. I hear that the teaching of history in most schools in the US hasn't changed much... it's still a story of "prominent" white men. Most white people didn't have a clue as to how horrible slavery was. "Roots" brought that, often for the first time, right into their living rooms.

Compassionate, humanistic film/television/literature/art gets the truth across well. If something is well done, it can help people empathize. With the money and resources Michael Moore has at hand, he could have done better.

Well put. Back in the early 80s, I was living in a household of Communists. I was dismayed that their discussions didn't include issues of feminism, race, or homophobia. When I brought up feminism, I was told that "women's issues" would be addressed after the revolution.

Ironically, all these "progressive" men could never bring themselves to clean the damn toilets. Guess who cleaned the toilets? I suppose they'd start after the revolution.

but they aren't just critiquing (sp?), they're flat out alienating. i read that, and as someone who supports wholeheartedly the "mainstream" anti-war momevment, i felt like it was combative and, as president bush might say, a "divider." i don't feel like this sort of internal squabble fixes anything, i feel like it just makes us segmented and powerless. i feel like while the points were quite valid, to decry moore as a conservative, practically branding him a traitor among liberals, the constructiveness is lost. hypothetically, if martin luther king jr. were shot down (figuratively) because he was, say, anti-asian, early on in his political activism, where would he have gone? the point is, moore is trying to do something good, and while criticism is appreciated, it shouldn't be used to exclude moore from the liberal ideology he holds because of minor parts of his movie.
at least, that's what i feel like was going on here.

I don't understand, are you telling me to forget the big picture, moore is making "painful racist propaganda"?
I feel like you should at least give him the benefit of the doubt on that. He tried to include portions of the film decrying racism and helping show the American people the way things are right now, but in another part of his movie, it seems as though some of this "propaganda" slipped through. is that a reason to discredit the movie or attempt to its producer? no. is that a reason to attempt to draw yet another line in the sand, in a time where the right is so united against everthing worth fighting for? no.

I went ahead and read the article, even though I haven't seen the flick yet. Take Counterpunch with a grain of salt, too. (http://www.livejournal.com/talkread.bml?itemid=23262691)

Happy anniversary!

What do you think the big picture is?

No, I did not say, nor did I mean that Moore is making "painful racist propaganda". The issue is that he used racist/stereotypical images. He's involved himself in propagating that crap.

I feel like you should at least give him the benefit of the doubt on that.

I feel like you should learn more about racism, which is an important part of the big picture, at least what I perceive the "big picture" to be. I don't need to give him the benefit of the doubt, his actions speak for themself.

He tried to include portions of the film decrying racism and helping show the American people the way things are right now, but in another part of his movie, it seems as though some of this "propaganda" slipped through.

"Slipped" through? People don't just "slip up" like that. When they use racist images to represent people, they show that they are racist.

Michael Moore has already discredited himself by repeatedly playing fast and loose with facts. The Disney stunt was just one minor example. I'm not saying that he doesn't ever address valid issues. I still think some of his shtick is funny. However, I'd have much more respect for him if he would stick with facts.

What exactly is a "line in the sand"? I'm unfamiliar with that term.

I think it would be entirely reasonable for Malcolm X to have called Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. excessively centrist, or for W.E.B. DuBois to have complained about Booker T. Washington's supposed civil rights advocacy being hopelessly inadequate. When people aren't speaking for you, you have to speak up for yourself and call them out on not saying the things that matter to you. I just don't see that as being a problem. I also do not see any likelihood of Moore's career being shattered by it, nor of Booker T. Washington's or Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s careers being destroyed by criticism from the people further left in their movements. The majority of the population is behind the more centrist, popular voices, not the leftist critiques of them, and if the leftists critique the popular voices for not being leftist enough, that just improves the discourse by getting the real leftist voices heard when they wouldn't have been heard if they hadn't spoken up about not being adequately represented by the centrist-leftists.

To be fair, I think that somewhere between Bowling for Columbine and Fahrenheit 9/11, Moore has gotten significantly more careful about getting his facts correct, and he deserves credit for it. What's missing now is not so much honesty as deep analysis. Fahrenheit 9/11 is essentially a compilation of news stories published on CommonDreams.org, strung together with no other connecting thread but just a sort of continuous chant about "Bush is evil." Which isn't worse than nothing; it's just really disappointing to anyone who was hoping for better.

Moore lives in the real world, like the rest of us. The fact that some of the "white society" and its stereotypes came up in his work is clearly a result of the fact that they are, in fact, engrained in society. The were not there to purposely degrade other races/nationalities, they were there to mock the "coalition" of "allies" that Bush got together.

And we all know Moore jumps the gun and flies off the handle. And maybe you don't respect him for that. But I'm sure thousands of people have at least started to think for themselves because of the questions he raises and the issues he brings up, and that is what I believe is the intention. Any questioning mind, any person who would critique something, any person who isn't half asleep ought to question this war more than they question this film.

The "line in the sand" term originated in the Alamo, I forget which leader it was, Bowie perhaps, drew a line in the sand and said, cross this line if you're with us.
Now, it means a sort of us-vs-them devicive line that someone makes over an issue, like, for example, Bush's stance on fighting terrorism and the Patriot Act. Either your with us (for the Act), or you're with the terrorists (against the Act).

But every single right-wing pundit is going to latch on to this squabbling and say "look, the liberals don't even know what they stand for" and try to make us look like inept morons, while they stand united behind the flag and jesus and the patriot act and whatever else they rally behind at any given time. the voice and critique is appreciated, the divisive manner in which it is expressed is not.

The fact that right-wingers think that the existence of multiple differing non-right-wing opinions somehow makes all of those opinions wrong doesn't make anyone but the right-wingers who think such a ridiculous thing look like morons.

to you maybe, but "america" will "stand behind" the "united" force of "morality"
if you know what i mean

hooray for anniversaries!
i always find myself defaulting to them, checking in with myself, seeing how different i am, whatnot.

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Where Michael Moore Went Wrong

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Happy Anniversary!

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